Robert J. Foy, General Manager of the Mass Transportation Authority recently wrote an opinion column in The Flint Journal, defending the MTA spending $524,052 for art for the MTA bus station, the administration offices and the 14 facilities ["Mass Transportation Authority art project plays key role in revitalizing Flint," If You Ask Me, March 10].

Mr. Foy said that the mission of the MTA is "to provide public transportation that is safe, reliable and affordable."

He should have stopped there, because that is what we, the public, believe the MTA mission to be.

But, he went on to say that the MTA is also an "economic development tool in Genesee County" and a "partner in the rebirth of downtown Flint."

Who gave it these missions? He said that the "real success or failure of the MTA is in meeting the expectations of the public." I believe that the expectations of the public are that the MTA should provide "safe, reliable and affordable" transportation -- period.

He explained that the MTA's role in downtown Flint also includes providing a museum in the bus station, thereby justifying the expenditure. I would hazard a guess that this wasn't the expectation of any member of the public.

It gets worse.

Mr. Foy says that for security reasons, in order to see the artwork that is hidden in the administration building, the public must find a guide to take them through the gallery.

Who pays for the guides? Is this part of the job creation that Mr. Foy talks about?
He also wrote that the half-million dollars spent was from federal grants, not local millage.

Mr. Foy must be under the illusion that the public won't care if our federal money is wasted as long as it isn't local money. It doesn't make any difference what part of public funds this comes from, it is wasteful and inappropriate.

It happens that the federal grant money is to be used for "only construction and renovation," according to Mr. Foy. I can't believe that a half-million dollars to buy artwork is either construction or renovation.

Mr. Foy's attempt to defuse the public outcry over this foolish spending didn't work. The more details we get, the more outrageous this project becomes. This time it isn't the economy, it's transportation, stupid!

Ted Goupil
Fenton Township

Those who made the rules to blame for troubles in domestic auto industry

In the Sunday, April 6, edition of The Flint Journal, part of a letter to the editor was a bit upsetting to me. The writer, in reference to other parts of her letter, said that "whoever pays the bills sets the rules."

She said a glaring example of this is foreign vs. domestic autos and that the workers in those companies made their decisions about the quality they wanted to produce.

Let's refer back to the "whoever pays the bills" part. I worked for General Motors for more than 30 years at the truck plant and the lack of quality was because management got what they wanted from the workers.

They made the rules.

Some foremen asked inspectors to OK jobs that were not, so the plant got the production quota, parts that didn't fit right or were missed. There are so many reasons to list for bad quality, there isn't room to go on.

I don't want to excuse some of the workers either. Some didn't give a hoot if they did the job right or not, but to paint them all with the same brush is not right.

The workers did not make the decision to import small foreign autos rather than tool up and build them here. That decision was made by "the people who pay the bills."

Jim Lane
Davison

Trapping misinformation runs amok

The recent responses to traps and trapping ["Trapping is cruel, inhumane," Your Views, March 24 and "Support bill to ban cruel, barbaric leg-hold traps," Your Views, March 26] are filled with inaccurate and misleading information.

First of all, traps are not designed to catch animals by the leg nor are they designed to cause a slow, excruciating death. Traps are designed to catch animals by the foot.

A trap should be referred to as a foot-hold trap. Traps are designed to catch and hold an animal without any damage or minimal damage to the foot.

Much of the public doesn't know that many wildlife reintroductions would have been impossible without the foot-hold trap. Otters have been successfully reintroduced throughout much of the Midwest by catching them live with foot-hold traps and releasing them into new habitats.

Bobcats, lynx, red fox, coyotes, badgers and even wolves have benefited from the use of foot-hold traps as a capture-and-release tool of wildlife researchers. I can state this as fact based on stacks of scientific studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Also, I have to disagree with the statement that "trapping in Michigan is largely unregulated." You only have to look at the 2007 Michigan Hunting and Trapping Guide, pages 38-45, to see otherwise.

Yes, I do sympathize with the Levine family on the loss of (their dog) Indy.

However, I don't believe foot-hold traps or even body-gripping traps should be outlawed. There is not a trap in production today that cannot be selectively set to nearly eliminate nontarget catches.

The loss of Indy does tell me that there is a need for trapper education.

In fact, the need for comprehensive trapper education has been a goal of the Michigan trapping organization for years, and has recently been manifested by the joint publication of the Michigan Trapper Education Manual found online at the DNR Web site.

Fact is, trapping is a valuable wildlife management and research tool. It is unfortunate that animal rights groups try to capitalize on tragedies such as Indy's to fuel their political goals of eliminating all animal use -- including our faithful pets -- through misinformation and false propaganda.